Holographic 3D Television - And No Glasses

Holographic 3-dimensional television has sounded like a neat idea to science fiction writers for generations; now scientists have created the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory. The displays do not require special glasses.

"This is a prerequisite for any type of moving holographic technology. The way it works presently is not suitable for 3-D images.

"It took us a while to make that first breakthrough, but as soon as you have the first element of it working the rest often comes more rapidly," he said. "What we are doing now is trying to make the model better. What we showed is just one color, what we are doing now is trying to use three colors. The original display was four inches by four inches and now we're going for something at least as big as a computer screen."

The present method is very slow, taking seconds to rewrite the screen; to present a convincing picture, such a display would need to refresh its entire screen memory several dozen times per second.

Peyghambarian is also optimistic that the technology could reach the market within five to ten years.
I'm looking forward to having one of these; it reminds me of the stereo tanks in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (1961).